INTERNATIONAL WRISTWATCHES

1825 • Birth of Louis Brandt.

1848 • Louis Brandt opened a Comptoir of établissage, a sales outlet for watches manufactures under sous-traitance.
 

1880 • The brothers Louis-Paul et César Brandt manufactured watches using modern procedures in Bienne. They signed their productions JURA, PATRIA, HELVETIA, CELTIC and GURZELEN.

1885 • The pallet calibre LABRADOR reached working precision of 30        seconds per day.

1889 • LOUIS BRANDT & Son became the biggest industrial company in Swiss horology, with and annual production of 100,000 watches.

1892 • Creation, in cooperation with AUDEMARS PIGUET, of the first minute repeater wristwatch in the world.

1894 • A new calibre of fob watches went into mass production and won popularity for the simplicity of its construction and the interchangeability of its parts.
The banker Henri Rieckel suggested the name OMEGA.

1903 • The success of the new name led the firm to drop all other names.

1909 • For the first time, OMEGA ventured into sports chronometers, during the international balloon races, in particular the Gordon Bennett Cup.

1917 • The British Royal Airforce chose OMEGA watches for its squadrons.

1918 • The US Army followed suit in its choice of OMEGA.

1919 • OMEGA chronometers won the Neuchâtel Observatory precision prize, the first of around twenty collected by 1971.

1933 • OMEGA obtained the world record for precision.

1936 • OMEGA obtained its 2nd world record for precision.

1946 • World record for precision.

1957 • Creation of the OMEGA SPEEDMASTER wristwatch chronograph.

1965 • Following extremely exacting tests, NASA chose the SPEEDMASTER PROFESSIONAL chronometer.

1967 • OMEGA obtained the millionth official certificate for precision for a chronometer.

1969 • On July 21, at 2H56 GMT, the astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the Moon. He was wearing an OMEGA SPEEDMASTER PROFESSIONAL wristwatch.

Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the Moon

1970 •At the request of Commander Cousteau, OMEGA created the SEAMASTER PROFESSIONAL 600 (known as the PLOPROF, from “plongeur professionnel” or professional diver). This completely water resistant watch, in its “monobloc” case with bolted winding crown and won the world record for deep-sea diving.

1972 • OMEGA obtained the 2,000,000th official precision certificate.

1974 • Launch of the marine MEGAQUARTZ chronometer.

1983 • Inauguration of the OMEGA Museum, December 16.

1995 • Introduction of the first wristwatch in the world with automatic winding crown and central tourbillon.

1999 • World first with the automatic 2500 caliber inspired by an invention by the English master watch-craftsman George Daniel, OMEGA perfected the CO-AXIAL ESCAPEMENT wristwatch and started mass production.

2001 • Launch of MUSEUM collection with re-issue of PILOT’S WATCH.

2002 • COSMIC MUSEUM Collection.

2003 •Launch of RAILMASTER.

Launch of MUSEUM Collection N°4.